


Melody

by ArgusApocraphex



Category: Fall Out Boy, The Youngblood Chronicles (Music Video)
Genre: Gen, rather dark content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1621709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgusApocraphex/pseuds/ArgusApocraphex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Courtney Love came to power, all music was outlawed. Now, a young girl must deal with the consequences of being caught with musical contraband. The question is, will she survive the punishment dealt to her?<br/>(Takes place between the videos for Death Valley and Rat A Tat... with some changes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

A teenage girl walks down a city street, her hands deep in her sweatshirt’s pockets, her breath puffing into the frosty air. A pair of soldiers marches past her, high heels clicking and red armbands flashing under the street lamp. The teen ducks her head timidly, but offers a smile of solidarity to the passing women. The nearest flashes a razor-edged show of teeth in return, her ferocity in even a small show of kindness reminding the younger of an Amazonian warrior - in all the wrong ways.  
Walking on, the girl tugs her hood down further on her head, a nervous tic. Then, after checking to see that the soldiers have gone and that no one is watching, she slips silently into an ally. There, amongst the overflowing dumpsters, she finds her sanctuary, a mildly soggy overturned cardboard box hidden in a dark, mucky corner. She crawls inside and makes herself as comfortable as one can be in such a space, and then tugs a small and deathly illegal item out of her pocket. Committing the most heinous crime one can commit under the new regime, she puts in her headphones and presses “play” on the device, sighing in happiness as the blissful contraband pours into her ears. Her eyes fall shut and the music plays on, distracting her from thoughts of stiletto’d soldiers and frigid winter nights.  
Unfortunately, the despicable state of the alley dulls the usually noisy clack of heels on pavement. The teen yelps in surprise as the top of the box is suddenly ripped away before cowering in terror of the women standing over her, unconsciously attempting to shield her iPod, her lifeline, beneath her. One of the women cocks her head to the side and smiles down at the girl as she did earlier.  
“What have we got here?” She says, nudging the toe of her shoe into the teen’s side. “To me,” she hisses. “It appears to be a treasonous little brat.” She brings her foot back before swinging a sharp kick into the huddled body on the ground. The girl cries out in pain and the second soldier laughs nervously, obviously a new recruit and still unaccustomed to the norms of her job. “Give it to us, dear, we know you have it.” The first says in a saccharine voice, punctuating ‘dear’ with another kick. The girl sobs and shakes her head weakly, curling more tightly around the small lump of metal in her hand. “You see,” the woman says to the other in a scholarly tone. “This is why our job is so important. The addiction is so deeply ingrained into her that she clings to it, even knowing the consequences of possession. She needs to be rehabilitated.” The hardest kick yet is delivered, making the teen whimper and loosen her curled position. The first soldier takes a step back and nods to the rookie, who steps in and snatches the iPod away. Making a startled sound, the teen claws at the woman’s retreating hands, trying to get the music back. The first soldier strikes the girl in the face, knocking her back. When the girl sits up, pleas fall from her now bleeding mouth, “I’m not hurting anyone.” she reasons “It-it’s not hurting anything. P-please? I-I need it!” The older soldier snatches the iPod away from her inferior, noting the way the girl’s eyes track its movement. She sneers and tosses it to the ground before crushing its screen with her heel. The girl’s heartbroken wail echoed down the alley and out into the street.  
“She is a serious case.” The more experienced soldier mutters to her companion, watching the teen crawl to the crushed device, not seeming to notice that she cuts her hands on broken bits of screen as she picks it up and cradles it to her chest “We need to get her to base so they can try to rehabilitate her.” The rookie nods and kneels beside the teen, shackling the girl’s wrists together with surprising gentleness. She looks at the girl with pity, before smiling gently and saying “We’re going to make you better.” The other woman sighs and pulls a syringe out of her jacket before injecting the prisoner with a murky substance that put her out like a light. Then, the soldiers pull a hood over the girl’s head to keep her from being recognized before grabbing her under each arm and dragging her out of the alley.


	2. Two

After months of intensive Treatment, the girl was hauled into a room inside the rehabilitation center and strapped into a chair. She had seen that room often during her time at the center, it housed two chairs that sat across from each other at a small table, one small and unassuming (for the Warden) and the other tall-backed and adorned with straps for restraint (for the patients), and behind the patient chair was a modest fireplace. The staff referred to it as the Salvation Room, whether or not you answered the Warden’s questions correctly determined if you were cured – “saved” - or not. This evening, the girl hung her head forward, not bothering to fight at her arm restraints anymore.  
“And how are we doing today?” The Warden asked in a honeyed voice, sitting in a chair across from her patient. The girl remained silent, staring blankly down at her lap and the Warden waited a moment before drawing in an irritated breath and shouting “YOU ARE TO LOOK AT YOUR SUPERIORS WHEN THEY ADDRESS YOU!” Then, the girl slowly raised her head and stared intently at the woman before her. “How are we doing today?” The kind tone was back in the elder’s voice as she repeated her first question.  
“’M doing good.” The teen replied, knowing from experience that using poor grammar got on the Warden’s nerves. “How are you doing, Warden Jones?” She added on sweetly.  
“I’m doing fine, thank you.” was her reply as she scratched a note down in the girl’s file. The questioning continued for what felt like hours, but it was routine for the girl now. At the end of the evaluation, the Warden smiled thinly and said something that strayed from the routine: “Well,” she said, looking over her notes. “It appears that you have finally made enough progress to be released from rehabilitation, congratulations! Now, you will be responsible to go to daily meetings to keep on track, and we will be checking in on you regularly, but you are free to go.” The girl looked at her in disbelief. Home, she could go home. “Oh, and one last thing, I almost forgot.” The Warden said, pressing a button embedded into the table. Suddenly, the room filled with the sweetest sound the teen had ever heard. She realized that she had heard it before, but couldn’t place its name. A huge grin threatened to split her face in two before the name of this miracle dawned on her. Music. She quickly schooled her expression back into one of disinterest, but it was too late. The Warden’s gaze was filled with disappointment. She clicked off the recording, stood with a sigh, and paced to the fireplace. There was the distinctive scraping sound of something metallic being lifted from the hearth. “Such a waste.” She murmured sadly. “I really hoped we could get through this one. So young…” She sighed again, just off to the right of the prisoner’s chair.  
Suddenly, there was a searing pain in the girl’s right arm, just above her wrist. She screamed and looked over to find a red hot branding iron being pressed to her skin, the sizzling noise of searing flesh was the only other sound in the room. The guards came over and began undoing the straps of the chair. They didn’t bother shackling the girl, knowing that she wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. She was led out of the room in a haze of pain and was dimly aware of being pulled down a corridor she didn’t recognize, one that was lined on either side with large metal doors. One of the doors squealed open and she was quickly shoved inside, before it was slammed behind her.  
The cell -she belatedly realized that that’s what this room was- was completely dark, save for a small patch of weak light at the entrance that filtered in from the dimly-lit hallway via a small grate at the top of the door. A strange, low rumbling noise filled the cell. The girl began crawling towards where she assumed the corner farthest from the door would be, trying to distance herself from everything that resided outside the door.  
As she progressed, the rumbling noise got louder and she absently wondered what was causing it. Suddenly, the rumbling was replaced with a snarl that was accompanied by the sharp clink of chains and a blinding pain as something sharp slashed across her face. She quickly backpedaled until her back hit a wall. The sound of the snarling was a bit further away now and wasn’t advancing, so she assumed that whatever beast she was locked up with was chained to the opposite wall. She raised a hand to her right cheek, fingers coming away sticky with blood from the cut the beast had given her. It didn’t seem too deep, luckily.  
She edged along the wall, trying to find the corner so that she could put a safe distance between herself, the door, and the thing, whatever the hell that was. She nearly jumped out of her skin when her searching hands found something relatively soft lying on the ground. Upon inspection via touch, she discovered that it was a mattress. Gratefully, she crawled onto it and lay down, pulling a rough woolen blanket from the foot of the bed over herself. Just like a prison. She thought before realizing that she was in prison, she was a criminal. Although, she didn’t know of many prisons that locked inmates up with dangerous animals.  
The girl was terrified and cold and in pain, but most of all, she was tired, so she curled up and tried to get some sleep. From the other side of the room, there was the sound of chain scraping on the floor and clinking against itself followed by the odd crunching noise that the plastic covered mattresses made when someone (or something) moved around on them. It looked like her cell mate had decided it was time for bed too.


	3. Three

She awoke to the squeal of hinges and the sound of something sliding across the concrete floor. A gruff voiced announced that “the tray is to be returned to the door slot” when she was finished eating. Opening her eyes, she found the light in the room on and a plastic tray of food by the door. She was in the hazy state of people who have just woken up, vaguely understanding her surroundings without fully grasping the weight of her predicament.  
Her arm stung and she looked down, finding an angry red music note stamped into the skin. Her mind then began to catch up on the events that had transpired last night and her head snapped up to where she expected the beast to be. Her eyes found their destination quickly, but she found something she had not planned to see. There was, in fact, another occupant of the room, but it was a man, not an animal. He sat on a mattress directly opposite hers, his back against the wall and his knees pulled to his chest. His right arm rested on top of his knees and she could see a manacle on his wrist that connected to a heavy chain anchored in the wall. His eyes glowed yellow and peered out at her over his arm. Distracted by his unnerving stare, she almost missed his left arm curled loosely around his legs, an evil-looking metal hook where his hand should have been rested on the tops of his feet. Even more unnerving, he had red-brown smears on his clothes, hand, and face that looked suspiciously like blood.  
“H-hello!” she said meekly, giving a little wave. His eyes tracked the movement of her hand and a growl resonated from his chest, making her flinch and drop the offending limb. She looked back at the food by the door and her stomach ached with hunger; she was used to the rehab center serving regular meals to the patients, but they hadn’t allowed her dinner last night. Sighing, she stood and made her way to the door, staying close to the wall on her side of the room but eliciting low snarling from her cellmate nonetheless.  
The food on the tray was some kind of unidentifiable mush paired with a carton of ‘grape drink’, but hey, food is food. There was hardly enough for two people, though. Unsure of what else to do, she pounded her fist on the door. “HELLO?” She called. After about a minute of yelling and hitting the door, there was a sharp clang from the other side, like someone had hit it with something metal. A shout came from the hallway for her to quiet down. “I think there’s been a mistake!” She called back. “There are two of us in here!” There was no response. She sighed and carried the food to her mattress, trying to ignore the way her cellmate was glowering at her. The food was as tasteless as it looked and the texture was similar to what one would expect eating half-congealed paste to feel like. However, the grape drink didn’t taste nearly as bad as she’d expected.  
After eating half of the “meal” she looked up at the man, who had gone back to staring at her silently. She stood and slowly made her way toward him, the tray held in front of her. He kept perfectly still and surprisingly quiet as she approached, but she didn’t like the calculating look on his face. Once she was about halfway between their beds, he lunged, roaring when the chain pulled taunt and stopped his forward motion. She screeched and dropped the tray, narrowly avoiding being impaled as he swung at her with his left arm. She backed away quickly, but tripped over her feet and landed on her butt. He had collapsed to his knees and sat, staring furiously at her, chest heaving and arms stretched in opposite directions, right pulled back by the chain and left extended towards the girl.  
She crawled backwards to her mattress, not breaking eye contact with him. He scooted backwards to allow for the use of his hand and then snagged the edge of the tray with the hook and dragged it towards himself. The carton on the tray had been knocked over spilled its remaining liquid in the fall, but the mush was still (semi) edible. He changed position so that he was sitting cross-legged with the tray on the ground in front of him, neither blinking nor looking away as he moved. She knew it was an intimidation tactic; he wanted her to look away first. She would have held on to their stare-down too, had it not been for the scrape of metal on plastic that caused her to look down in surprise. Despite his obvious human appearance, she viewed her cellmate as being more of a thing than a person. It was a bit of a shock to her to see him use the spoon she’d left on the tray to eat.   
She felt odd watching him eat, but he wouldn’t stop staring at her, so she figured he could deal with it. Nagging in the back of her mind, there was the strangest feeling that she knew who he was, but she had no memory of having met any homicidal, yellow-eyed men before, with or without left hands.  
He finished eating and went back to his bed, leaving the tray in the middle of the room. She lay down and turned to face the wall, starting to get creeped out by the man’s unblinking yellow glare. Bored, she hummed the tune of the music from the Salvation Room softly to herself. That song had been one of her favorites, once upon a time. She tried to remember why music had been outlawed in the first place.   
Her humming and musings were interrupted by the sound of the cell door being unlocked. The man went wild, instantly on his feet and at the end of his chain, roaring at the intruding guards. The first guard leveled a rifle and shot, the sound much quieter than expected. The man made a quiet pained sound and looked down at his arm, where the end of a tranquilizer dart stuck out from his dirty orange prison jumpsuit. The tranquilizer was apparently a very high dose, as it took less time than should have been possible for the man to fall. He was only able to turn and take a few staggering steps back towards the beds before he fell to his knees. He looked up at the girl and for a moment, the look of terror on his face made her pity him. Then he fell forward and lay unmoving on the cement. The second guard pulled the girl to her feet and muttered something about “shower day” and led her from the cell.  
They walked down the corridor to a giant room that basically looked like and enlarged version of that shower area in high school locker rooms that no one uses. There were other women in the room who were already showering and from her quick glance around, the girl figured that she was the youngest there. She shed her clothes and found the nearest unoccupied shower nozzle. The water was warm and felt nice for the most part. She managed to keep the fresh burn of the brand out of the stream of water, but had to bite her lip to keep from crying out in pain when she tried to wash her face and encountered the slash on her cheek.  
After the shower, she discovered that her standard-issue grey rehab sweats had been replaced with blue scrubs, declaring her transition from patient to inmate. She was led back down the hall to her cell, where she was surprised to find herself alone. She didn’t know when or if the man was coming back, so she used her time alone to use the toilet, as it resided on his side of the room, close enough for him to access it whilst being tethered to the wall. If the girl tried to use it while he was in the room, he’d be able to attack her. She didn’t know what she would do if she was locked in here with him for an extended amount of time. Maybe she’d piss in the corner until the guards tired of having to constantly clean out the cell and moved her.  
The girl had been alone maybe ten minutes (it was hard to judge time in a windowless and seemingly soundproof room; it could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour) before the food slot at the bottom of the door opened and another plastic tray slid into view. This time it was a burrito, some kind of stew-ish bean thing, mixed vegetables, and a small carton of milk. She retrieved the meal and had just settled down to eat when there was the sound of the cell door being unlocked before it swung open and two guards shuffled in, carrying her unconscious cellmate between them. A third guard stood at the door, staring the girl down, but she ignored the woman and watched the others lay the man down on his mattress. Then, they re-chained his hand to the wall and left.  
She ate her half of the food quickly and, feeling brave, crossed the room and set the tray down next to the man’s bed. He was shaking and when she looked down at him, her mind flashed to how terrified he’d been when he’d been tranquilized earlier. Feeling a wave of empathy for him, she reached too the foot of his bed and pulled his blanket up. After a moment, his shuddering decreased in violence and he looked somewhat peaceful. The staff had obviously bathed him when they took him away, his face was clean and he was in a new uniform, one that wasn’t stained with blood. The girl was struck again with the feeling that she knew who this man was and suddenly, a name jumped to the front of her mind. It couldn’t be him though; all musicians had been tracked down and executed. She remembered hearing that his band had been terminated and being devastated by the news. His eyelids fluttered like he was trying to open them, which was her cue to go. She jumped up and hurried back to the safety of her bed.  
He woke up slowly, seeming rather disoriented. For a moment, he blinked profusely and looked around the room, freezing when he got to her and making a sound of surprise. Then, he closed his eyes for a moment and reopened them, like he expected her to disappear. Noting that she didn’t, he huffed and tried to get up. Looking down, he saw that he was covered with his blanket. He lowered his head and sniffed the edge of the offending cloth before turning to look accusingly at the girl. After finally maneuvering himself into a more or less seated position against the wall, he noticed the food she’d left. The tray was given the same glare as the blanket before he picked it up and set it on his lap. Before taking a bite, he shot another narrow-eyed look at the girl, like he suspected her to be up to something. The girl was fighting back hysterical giggles because, dangerous or not, her cellmate was entertaining when coming out of sedation.  
The remainder of the afternoon was rather tame in comparison to the last few months of the girl’s life. The man was subdued, even borderline polite; pushing the empty food tray to the middle of the room so that the girl could return it to the door and not attacking her when she got up to retrieve it. There were no more visits from the guards, either. The girl sat back and pondered the brand on her arm; it was stinging too much for her to ignore it for any amount of time. It was a singular eighth note and she supposed that it was supposed to be a kind of mark of shame, meant to make her a pariah if she ever made it back into society, like “Look at this criminal, this wretch who couldn’t give up on her addiction, even through the pain of rehabilitation.” She would wear the mark as a badge of honor though, as proof of her loyalty to dreaming and believing and loving something with reckless abandon. She also knew that the rest of the population (the ones who submitted to the new regime’s rule) didn’t know of the horrors that went on in the “Music Rehabilitation Centers”. They didn’t know that the soldiers beat teenagers in back alleys and then used barbaric physical and psychological torture methods on rehab patients when conventional methods showed signs of failure. They were unaware that the heroes they had abandoned were being turned into monsters. She glanced across the room to the shattered man (maybe musician) across from her. What had they done to him?  
After hours of nothing happening, the food slot on the door squealed open again. The girl wondered if that sound was going to be the new highlight of her life. The food wasn’t good, but at least eating gave her something to do other than stare blankly at the wall or her cellmate. This time, the cuisine was a dark, stewey substance with chunks of beef(?) floating in it, mashed potatoes, green beans, and another carton of milk. However, two bottles of water were also rolled through the slot this time, which was nice. The teen ate her portion of the food quickly, but felt apprehensive about taking the food to her cellmate. The only time she’d gotten close to him without him attacking her was when he was drugged. He’d been rather mellow all day though, so maybe things were on the upswing in their relationship.   
The girl was about to cross the room when she had a quick revision of thought, opened one of the water bottles and balanced it carefully on the tray. She looked up in fear as she heard the clinking of chain links, but was pleasantly surprised to see the man walk calmly to the end of his tether, right arm behind his back to show that he couldn’t stretch any further forward, and wait patiently for her. She made her way to him and started to lean down to place the tray at his feet when the chain clanked again and his hand came forward and grabbed her arm. His grip was hard enough to bruise and her surprise made her drop the tray. He tugged sharply pulling her closer and biting hard into her forearm and his left arm wrapped around her, keeping her in place. In a moment of clarity, she brought her knee up hard between his legs to stop the attack. He let out a strangled sound and released her, dropping to his knees. She used his moment of disability to rush to the sink and try to flush her new wound, she wasn’t confidant that the inmates were allowed medical attention and the last thing she wanted was an infection.  
After washing out the bite mark, she made her way back to her bed. He was still curled on the ground. She felt no sympathy. “What the hell was that for?” She snarled at him. “Here I am, trying to help you out so you don’t starve and this is how you repay me?” The food was in a mess on the floor and she was certain at least half of the water in the bottle had dumped onto her on its way down.  
She sat down and examined her arm more closely. “As if I didn’t have enough wounds to deal with.” She grumbled, watching the blood seep from the fresh cuts. Unlike the slash she’d received from the hook, these cuts were deep and wouldn’t stop bleeding without external pressure on the wound. She sighed in resignation and glanced over at the man, who was just starting to move again. She removed her shirt as quickly as possible (or at least, as was possible without overly irritating the injuries she now sported on both arms), folded it, and pressed the material to the cuts, hissing at the sensation.  
Moving to hide her sports bra-clad upper body under the blanket, she glanced at her slowly recovering cellmate to discover that he was well enough to be staring at her again… Of course he was. She gave him the finger with the hand not applying pressure to her cuts, but noticed that his look was more “I’m going to kill you once I manage to get off the floor” and less ogling like a creepy pervert.   
“Hey bud, you brought that upon yourself.” She pointed out, lying down and holding her arms straight up in the air to keep the newest injury elevated. He glowered at her before lowering his gaze to stare mournfully at the food on the floor. “That was all you as well.” She sighed.  
“You know what?” She snarled as he slowly crawled back to his bed. “I thought I’d recognized you. I saw you and thought, hey, I know him; but you’re nothing like the man I confused you with. All I had ever heard of him was the kind things he’d done for the people who loved him, how he was nice to everyone. But then he was gone and you are what was left in his place. These people took something so bright, someone who was a beacon of hope for the hopeless, and twisted him into a nightmare. And you,” She seethed. “You let them. You abandoned us when we needed you the most. We were getting beaten in the streets in your name; we were hauled off to this hell because we wouldn’t give up the gift you’d given us and then I come to find out that you let them hollow you out and turn you into a weapon to be used against the ones who loved you.” Hot tears of anger and pain rushed down her face as she looked across at her cellmate. She studied his shocked expression for a moment before turning away from him, curling towards the wall to sleep when the lights went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering, the reason that he seemed to get to the end of the chain, but could then bring his arm forward to grab her at the end was that he had been holding some of the slack in his hand, which was out of her line of vision behind his back.


	4. Four

The flicker of florescent bulbs sparking to life signaled the start of a new day and woke up the teen. She blinked sleepily and sat up slowly, gasping at the sensation of cold air hitting her bare back. Right, she’d used her shirt as a compress. The material was stuck to her arm with crusted blood and she used the remainder of her water from dinner to free the fabric from the nasty, but thankfully scabbed, cuts before pulling the garment back on. Pulling her blanket around her for added warmth, she sat against the wall and gazed idly around the room, jumping when she realized her cellmate was not, as she’d first assumed, asleep.  
“Who did you think I was?” He asked, his voice rough. She stared at him a moment in surprise and he stared back expectantly, resting his chin on his forearm. Today his eyes were a slightly different shade of yellow, somehow appearing softer, more benign.  
“You reminded me of the singer from my favorite band. Only, he had both hands and didn’t have yellow eyes. You reminded me of a man named Patrick Stump.” She replied and he smiled, though it wasn’t exactly a friendly gesture.  
“Then you thought correctly, my dear.” He growled, sitting up and mimicking her posture.  
“B-but, you were announced dead! Your whole band was reported to have been killed!” She sputtered and he looked at her condescendingly.  
“Don’t you know not to trust what you read in the newspapers?” He laughed. “My friends,” He drawled out the word ‘friends’. “Are still out there somewhere, I would assume. They got away when these guys caught me.” He paused for a moment and studied her. “You seem a bit young to be in here, how old are you? What’s your name?”  
“Oh!” She squeaked, remembering that she hadn’t really introduced herself. “I’m 17 and my name is Melody.” He looked at her for a moment like he expected her to deliver some kind of a punch line, doubling over with laughter when she gave none.  
“Your name,” He gasped. “Is Melody? Well no wonder you’re in here! Oh, God, that’s rich.” She looked at him with a highly unamused expression as he laughed. He sobered quickly. “Sorry.” Melody stared at him for a moment longer, one question on her mind and suddenly, she found herself asking it.  
“What did they do to you?” she blurted. His smile faded fast and he dropped his eyes.  
“I don’t know.” He muttered, sounding hopeless. “I was walking down the street and one of the soldiers attacked me. I was knocked out and woke up in some room and they cut off my hand and -and,” he took a jagged breath and looked back up, with the same look of terror on his face as when the guards came to get him. “Oh Melody, it hurt so badly.” He brought his left arm and remaining hand up to cover his face. “Then, then it got so much worse. They were cutting me open and hurting me more and I blacked out and when I woke back up,” He was sobbing now and she couldn’t stop herself anymore; she got up and went over to sit beside him. When she sat down, he curled into her and hung on to her arm like he’d drown without the contact.  
“Shh, you don’t have to tell any more Patrick, it’s okay.” she said gently. His face rubbed on her shoulder when he shook his head ‘no’. She understood, sometimes things just needed to be said.  
“When I woke back up, I was in a new room and I was strapped into a chair and could hardly move. Some of the soldiers were there and they hooked me up to these machines and I fought so hard but couldn’t get free. The machines, they did something to me,” Patrick drew another shuddering breath before continuing. “I was fine one minute –well, not fine- and the next minute… I was so angry. Then, Pete came running through the doors and tried to get me out and I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to rip him apart. He gave me this,” he moved the arm he’d wrapped around her, tapping the hook lightly against her shoulder. “So much, so much shit happened after that,” he sobbed, beginning to lose coherency. “We were running for our lives, then they were running from me and I was coming to get them. Then I killed Joe and they’re gonna make me kill the rest of my friends and now… Now, I’m gonna kill you.” His tone turned deadly and he threw himself forward, catching the girl off guard and pinning her to the mattress. He laughed low in his throat as his hand closed around her neck. She opened her mouth to cry for help, but no sound came. Panic began to overtake her and she fought back instinctively, but he was much stronger. His eyes returned to the color she’d first seen, sickeningly bright yellow and faintly glowing. As she fought, a cruel smile marred his features. His pupils dilated in excitement as she fought harder. He tilted his head to the side and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of metal and felt the cold sharpness of the hook as he dragged it down her face, not pushing hard enough to cut her skin, but enough to speed her already pounding heart. A low thrumming noise like a growl resonated in his chest before he ducked his face down and dragged his teeth down the same path as the hook. When he leaned forward, the weight on her throat increased greatly, adding another pain to the mix. Her head was pounding with the pressure that was building up and her vision was beginning to grow hazy, but she fought to keep her eyes open. Blazing yellow filled her plane of sight as he looked down at her without sitting back up and she felt hot puffs of air on her face as he breathed jaggedly. Gradually, she began to get a heavy, tired feeling and her eyes fell shut. The last thing she knew was the feeling of her former idol’s mocking smile when his lips met her forehead in a parody of a goodbye kiss.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
He felt her pulse fade against his fingers and grinned down at the silly young thing. They all came crawling to their death eventually. He stared proudly at the darkened skin of her pretty little neck. I marked her all up, the beast thought to himself. There was the partially healed slash on her face, the blood-crusted bite mark on her arm, which he trailed his fingers across, and now those pretty, pretty bruises. “Melody,” he hummed, savoring the ridiculous and perfect name. Such a pity that dead things rot, He lamented internally. I would have liked to stare at that defiled beauty forever.  
When the soldiers came for him, he’d pulled the girl’s body into his lap and was stroking absently at her hair as he stared blankly at the wall. One of the women cleared her throat and he turned his attention to them.  
“General Love wants to see you.” She stated. A sick grin marred his features.  
“Does she now? Is it news on my friends?” The soldier nodded and unchained him from the wall. He pushed the body out of his lap roughly as he stood and strode to the door, laughing to himself when his inner dialogue hissed, "it’s Courtney, bitch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback is greatly appreciated, but I would request that you be nice if you've got criticisms, as this is the first thing I've put out into the world and it's my baby. :)


End file.
